By far the best solution is to have a config script driven solution.
If you feel that the re-write necessary to do this is too gargantuan, have you thought about trying to obtain more coding colleagues, and have it as an ongoing open source project?
This way, you open up what sounds like a very useful tool to the largest possible audience, without taking too much of the load on your own shoulders.
As per Merlyn's post above, there are Perl modules around that happily process XML, which could take a lot of work from you too.
I tend to use XML, as most people feel pretty at home with the style of it, and it's very easily extensible.
Anyway, that's just my tuppence worth.

Malk

*I lost my .sig. Do you have a spare?*

In reply to Re: expect users to program or define a simple definition language? by Malkavian
in thread expect users to program or define a simple definition language? by BastardOperator

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.